Crashmo Review: Puzzles with Confidence

Intelligent Systems crafts another must own puzzle gem where you push mo' blocks.

Few feelings measure up to the general satisfaction that follows after you solve a challenging puzzle. This is especially true if, like me, you've wasted more than 20 minutes (or even a few days) doing it wrong. Crashmo thrives on your ability to reach this happy place. Developed by Intelligent Systems as the sequel to Pushmo -- a phenomenal puzzle game quietly released late last year -- Crashmo explains its core concept with more more confidence than its predecessor.

Success in Crashmo depends on your ability to make visual connections. A player must rearrange blocks until they find a clear route to the top so they can rescue a small bird and clear the stage. It's all very cute, and it has a story-driven purpose, too.The playing field itself is much wider than the previous installment, and each stage begins with a set of blocks crashing down into a pre-arranged stack. I suppose nothing really crashes in Crashmo, since pieces quietly fall to the ground as the player shuffles them back and forth. Don't count on realistic physics as a defining aspect of Crashmo. As long as block stands on a single support piece, adjacent pieces will remain held up as well.

In Pushmo, Intelligent Systems leaned on long-winded tutorials to introduce new mechanics, and subsequent stages would show different variations of a single idea, frequently re-explaining things the player learned a few stages ago. Thankfully, the puzzles themselves significantly picked up the slack, which counter-balanced the lame tutorials, but even so the developer has addressed this misstep in the sequel.

Crashmo sidesteps its predecessor's sometimes-boring attempts at education by introducing a new idea and then quickly stepping away. If a player runs into a vexing puzzle, they can always back out and go over the fundamentals with quick visit to Papa Blox, with additional training in order to help clear the hurdle in question. Below I've listed my notes from the 65th puzzle of Crashmo: A difficult challenge that took me a few days to complete, but one that still felt satisfying to finish. I figured it would provide the clearest insight into the process of actually playing Crashmo.

Wednesday 12/5

I burned through 64 puzzles of Crashmo in a single day(!) with only a few stumbles here and there -- which made the hours seemingly melt into mere minutes. I've discovered the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly here, and the added size of the playing field leaves plenty of room to experiment with solutions. In Crashmo shuffling blocks back and forth into the right pathway becomes an important skill. I'm definitely enjoyed my time with Crashmo today; in fact, I kept talked myself into playing "just one more puzzle" until 3:00 a.m.

I started puzzle no. 65, which uses a quirky switch gadget to shift blocks in a single direction, but I'm too tired to play anymore. I'll try to wrap this up tomorrow.

Thursday 12/6

I tried my luck tonight for almost an hour, but number 65 signals my first roadblock in Crashmo. The puzzle consists of four individual pieces, each one smaller than the next. The smallest piece on the board measures up to size of a single cube, and the bird I need to rescue sits on top of the tallest structure -- a stack of squares that measures nine cubes in height!

The switch gizmo makes this puzzle difficult to solve. First, I have to figure out the right arrangement, but bear in mind that I need the switch gadget to slide everything over to the left or right. So far, I don't know where to start and all of my options have lead to no where.

I got desperate and looked to the bird for a helpful sign. Sadly, he just shook his head whenever I moved certain blocks. Coincidence? Maybe. I couldn't tell if it's a sign of disapproval or some weird social tic. Whenever I got the, "Oh no you didn't," response from my feathered friend, I decided to use one of the two rewind functions in Crashmo. The first rewinds time when you press and hold the L button. A timeline scrolls by at the top and everything goes back to normal once I release the button. The second rewind mechanic is actually a reset switch that people will remember from the first game. It sits in the middle of the stage for players to reset the entire puzzle at any time.

Both methods undo the crazy ideas I tried tonight. After an hour or so of failure, I retired for the night. You win, Crashmo. I'll solve this puzzle tomorrow.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 12/7 - 12/9

Tomorrow? Ha. I'm too busy to play Crashmo this weekend, but I kept thinking about puzzle no. 65. I left a mental note to myself: Play this level and figure it out soon.

Monday 12/10

Eureka! I've got it. Once I placed the smallest block on the floor and slid the largest piece behind the three remaining blocks, everything (literally) fell into place. The three pieces became a cascading staircase and, using the switch block, I moved the second largest piece on the field into the right position. I rescued the bird and exited the level.

Crashmo expands the ideas of its predecessor and presents another charming entry in the block-pushing puzzle series. As with any puzzle game, occasional road blocks are inevitable, but the satisfying feeling of success drives me to continue playing. Once I'm done with the 100 puzzles that come standard with Crashmo, I can play through additional challenges and even player-made levels which can be copied to my system using QR codes. With easy sharing options, a cute visual style, and a puzzle game that's brimming with much more confidence, I find it hard not to mention Crashmo without a glowing recommendation.